


A Period of Mourning

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Development, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Personal Growth, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 02:25:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1328452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ok. Yet another of my odder ones. Sherlock-centric. Pro-Mary, though she's in very little of it. Pro-John and Mary. Character death(ish). Mourning--lotsa. Sherlock crashing headlong into mourning when he's not expecting it: LOTSA. Sherlock growing, changing, and moving out of his current character? Yeah--I would say this expands Sherlock as much as Season Three expanded him, though in different directions. Sherlock experiencing delayed personal maturation.</p><p>This is one where I started with a premise, and the characters proceeded to keep on surprising me, and surprising me, and surprising me. </p><p>If you don't like Mary, or you can't believe that Sherlock really does love her, you're going to have trouble with this one. Just warning you. Starting premise on this is that he really did grow to love her enough that his "vow" and his final enactment of that vow really was to her as well as to John.  Mmmph. It helps to like Janine, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Period of Mourning

Mary was gone.

Mary and the baby—both gone. It was over in a matter of seconds: the door crashing in, the rattle of the guns, the sudden blaze of lights. Sherlock and John had raced forward, prepared to fight, only to be overpowered by the attackers. They’d been knocked to the ground and tied, even as a second group of armed soldiers dragged Mary and the child from the nursery into the little back garden. Shots had been fired. Mary had fallen, silent and heavy. Sherlock’s last memory was of a soldier lifting John Watson’s wife like a side of beef, hoisting her on his shoulder as the team raced toward a waiting RV.

The tests made on the blood found in the garden the next day established that the victims of the previous night’s violence had been Mary and her daughter, Elaine.

To Sherlock’s horror, he was the one who cried. He cried that day. He cried that night, alone at Baker Street. He cried at the funeral. He thought he was fine—and then, suddenly, he’d think he saw her, moving cheerfully through the London throngs at rush hour, or clinging to the overhead bar in the Tube, or pushing a pram around Hyde Park at lunch time.

John was silent, for the most part. He’d spent the night after the hit somewhere deep in MI6, probably being interrogated by Mycroft and his merry minions long after Mycroft had let Sherlock go. He’d spent the following week alone in a hotel. Then he’d moved back to Baker Street. It wasn’t the victorious reunion Sherlock had occasionally dreamed of.

It had been one thing to dream of Mary dead, or divorced, or just…gone…allowing Sherlock to return to the life he’d grown to love before. Not that he’d dreamed of it often, but part of his own pilgrimage to self-understanding had included realizing he wanted what he couldn’t have—the life he’d left when he jumped off of St. Bart’s.

Mycroft spoke of the two years he and John had enjoyed in Baker Street as “your Peter Pan phase,” but if that was what it was, it had been a glorious fantasy. Sherlock and John, two against the world, racing through London’s streets as fast as the wind, paired comets streaming across the night sky. Best friends living the best of times, together. It had been easy for Sherlock to slip into the occasional daydream of returning to all that. It had been almost impossible to work through what the price would be.

In the weeks after the raid, Sherlock learned that price…and learned things about himself he hadn’t known before—among them, how dearly he had adored his best friend’s wife and child. When it first hit him, he felt guilty. To mourn so deeply, to miss them so much—surely he must have crossed some forbidden line? He wasn’t good at knowing where the lines were, or at staying inside them even when he did…

“Don’t be daft,” John had growled the afternoon he’d forced the truth out of Sherlock. “The two of you were like peas in a pod. A matched set. But—it wasn’t what you’re worried about, all right? You just understood each other…and as much of a prat as you can be, even you aren’t invulnerable. She was my wife—but she was your friend, and we were your family.” He tilted his head and studied Sherlock, pondering, then said, firmly, “You’ve just never lost anyone so close before, have you?”

Sherlock wanted to say all the usual things: that he didn’t do sentiment. That caring wasn’t an advantage. That he was a high-functioning sociopath and he didn’t feel things the way other people did…

John just snorted, and made him a cup of tea, and told him to stop being such an idiot.

“All people die,” Mycroft said, weeks later, over a planning session, when Sherlock had found himself suddenly bereft of words when trying to discuss Mary’s background and the possible enemies who might have planned the raid. Big brother had given a small, sad smile, barely as strong as a dying ember. “All hearts—“

“I know, Mycroft,” Sherlock snapped. “But I didn’t think—“

“You didn’t think you really cared,” Mycroft said, softly. “Live and learn, little brother. Live and learn. You, too, are mortal.”

Sherlock shot him a toxic glare. “Unlike you, who care for nothing and no one.”

“Except you; except you; except you,” Mycroft said back, eyes opaque and empty. It was an accusation, and both brothers knew it. Thanks to Sherlock, Mycroft was forever compromised—his heart forever at risk.

Lestrade cleared his throat, then, and said, “About these ‘Sicarii.’ You’re sure there’s a link between fundamentalists and a terror cell here in London?”

The two brothers turned back to work, then, trying to sort out the various groups that might have pursued plans to attack Mary Watson—or her former self, the CIA rogue who’d rebelled against her own commanders when, in her eyes, they’d become no more than Christianized copies of the Islamic fundamentalists arrayed against the United States.

Lestrade kept them on course, kept their focus steady. Sherlock couldn’t speak for Mycroft, but he wasn’t sure he could have managed it without the older man’s help.

“He’s right,” he told Lestrade later, over a pint of bitter. “I didn’t know I cared so much. For John, yes. And I knew Mary mattered. Just…not so much.”

“’Much’ isn’t something you’ve let yourself experience often,” Lestrade said. His own pint was pale ale, tall and blonde as sunshine. He sucked down a long draught, then said, “Which would be worse—having never loved her, or having lost her?” Before Sherlock could snap back his instant certainty that avoiding the pain would be better, Lestrade nailed him, brown eyes stern. “Play fair, Holmes. Really—would you prefer never to have known Mary? Never to have held Elaine?”

Sherlock could almost manage it. Almost. It was the memory of Elaine that broke him, in the end. So pink and small…

He’d sent a picture to Mycroft’s cell phone, then texted, “You have to see her. She’s amazing.”

Mycroft had texted back a copy of an old photo of himself with Baby Sherlock, and typed simply, “I know.”

For that alone Sherlock knew he could never bear for them not to have lived at all. Once he admitted it, though, too much came back. Mary’s wry, steady sense of humor. Her willingness to share John…and then Elaine. The strange sense that she was a sister he’d never known—as much kin to him as Mycroft, and in similar ways. The first time she’d ever sliced a piece of her own bread for him, slathered it with butter and honey, and said as he bit into it, “That’s why I bother.” The bread had felt like something alive; the butter was sweet and salt and mixed with the honey and the dense, lush scent of yeast to create something remarkable.

“My mother baked bread, too,” he’d said in confusion. She was a good baker, his mother—not because she had to be, but for the same quixotic reason she and his father spent a small fortune line-dancing in Oklahoma, of all places. It amused her. But her bread hadn’t filled his mouth the way Mary’s had, nor had she seemed to smile with so much pride and mischief.

They’d had a long conversation one afternoon about their preferred methods of observing a potential target for a hit…in the nursery, as Elaine nursed and then slept. They’d laughed together over John and his ongoing attempts to believe himself quite ordinary and conventional. They’d compared notes on their respective experience of the night Mary had shot Sherlock—with John muttering and pouring himself repeated shots of whiskey because he couldn’t believe that, to Mary and Sherlock, the conversation was quite interesting, not distressing.

He’d been the one with Mary when she went into labor. He’d been the one to hold her and tell her to breathe as the taxi raced toward the hospital. He’d been the one to text John to come see his daughter born. He’d been the one ushered in to the dismay of the midwife and doula, who held Mary’s hand while John sat at her head and stroked her hair.

He’d been the second to kiss her damp forehead and stare in awe at her and her baby.

Remembering, Sherlock started to shake. Lestrade muttered something quiet under his breath, then clamped one hand over Sherlock’s shoulder, high up near the neck; a grip almost tight enough to leave bruises.

“I miss her,” Sherlock managed to say.

“I know,” Lestrade replied, calmly. “Hurts like hell. I know.”

Sherlock didn’t ask him who he’d lost, that he knew so well. The truth was, Sherlock still wasn’t at the point of really caring. All that mattered, at least that night, was that someone else did know the horrible, bitter certainty that even Mary and Elaine’s deaths were more acceptable than to lose the memory of their lives.

Molly was a peach about it all—even the time he looked down at a corpse they were studying, and suddenly realized she resembled Mary. She’d sat him down, shoved his head between his knees, and gone off and got coffee for them both.

“I don’t do this,” he’d said, bitterly, once he was able to sit up again. “I don’t. What’s wrong with me?”

“You’re not who you thought you were,” Molly said. She risked a mischievous grin. “You’re not who either of us thought you were. But I’m still willing to help you.”

He glowered at her, then gulped the coffee without thanking her. It made him feel a bit more in character. Then he huffed, and said sorrowfully, “It was easier before.”

“Before what?”

“Before you all started _changing_ me. John. You. Gavin. Hudders.”

“Greg. And it probably was easier.” She met his eyes with a calm, fierce gaze that rattled him. “But it’s not our fault, you know. You’d reached the limits; you had to either grow or die inside.” She gave him a sweet smile, echoing her old shyness, but brave, too. “I’m glad you decided to grow.”

Drugs had been easier, he thought. ODing would have been easier, too, but Mycroft and Lestrade between them had made that close to impossible, John had continued their work, and Molly had pretty much finished the job. Suicide through better chemistry was no longer an option.

“I didn’t used to hurt all the time,” he said.

“Bet you weren’t happy as often, either.”

He huffed. “I’m not happy _now_.”

“You will be, though,” she assured him. “It will come.”

John kept on, falling into moody silences, walking alone at night too often—but at least safe, in Baker Street. Sherlock found himself slipping back in memory and mood…not to their first years together, but to the months before John and Mary’s wedding, when Sherlock had torn himself apart and rebuilt himself from the ground up, trying to learn how to be a friend worthy of John’s friendship. John’s and Mary’s friendship. How hard he’d tried to learn reciprocity and thoughtfulness and listening and anticipating his friends’ needs. Now he fought to get those abilities back—abilities that had lain largely dormant since he’d killed Magnussen and been drawn back into the war against Moriarty’s immortal web. John and Mary had humored him, both of them fond and indulgent. Both knew that, if he needed them, they could call the softer, more tender Sherlock back.

He stood in the window at night, playing the violin, eyes watching the street for John to return from his walks. When he saw the small figure striding up the pavement, eyes fixed ahead and mind a million miles away, he’d go to the kitchen and turn on the kettle. He’d make sure that a packet of biscuits was out—or, if John hadn’t eaten, he’d put out cheese and crackers. Or when John came in he’d offer to order take-away or even to heat up beans and make toast.

“You’re as bad as your brother,” John said, sometimes. But he accepted the hot tea gratefully, and ate up the beans and toast with a sort of quiet relief, as though knowing he’d been fed removed one more worry from his shoulders.

“Mycroft wouldn’t make you beans and toast,” Sherlock said. “Probably Welsh Rarebit, and he’d be fussy about what beer he used.”

The truth was, he was drawing on memories of Mycroft. He’d crash Mycroft’s little flat as a young man, ignoring that Mycroft might not want his crazy baby brother plowing through any social plans he might have for an evening. Well, of course he’d not cared—in his mind Mycroft would only be doing two things: working late or fornicating with idiots. Neither one was an activity worthy of Sherlock’s respect. What he remembered now, that hadn’t mattered then, was that no matter how many times he interrupted Mycroft’s work, or chased away a handsome partner, Mycroft could be counted on for a plate of rarebit, a bottle of ale, and a sofa for the night, along with an hour or so of scolding and lectures, of course.

What was it that only now did Sherlock remember how safe he’d felt lying on Mycroft’s sofa, his stomach full of cheese and toast, hearing Mycroft shower and brush his teeth and crawl into his pajamas for the night? He could close his eyes and see the sitting room in Mycroft’s first flat—small and shabby, only slightly more extensive than a studio, with a bedroom partitioned off with limp curtains. Mycroft had wanted to prove something—to their parents, to himself, to the world? Sherlock wasn’t sure who Mycroft had needed to prove himself to, only that the need had driven his older brother to quarters Sherlock despised and criticized endlessly—but crept back to every time he escaped from uni and went clubbing and got high and couldn’t convince himself to take the train back to Cambridge.

Mycroft had owned an old wool blanket at the time—the kind made of boiled wool so thick you could practically stand it up like a plank. It was well woven—a two-sided weave with cream roses on a pink background on one side, and pink roses on a cream background on the reverse.

“Oxfam,” Mycroft had told him, when Sherlock scoffed at the sentimental pattern. He looked quite pleased with himself. “Got it for five pounds. It’s warm…really warm.”

“Should have just bought an electric blanket,” Sherlock had snapped, but at night he liked rolling himself into that blanket, smelling all the accumulated scents: cedarwood from some chest or closet; wool; detergent; the sweet, nutty smell of the tobacco from the pipe Mycroft was currently attempting to master.

“How many swains did I chase away from your flat when I used to come up from uni,” he texted Mycroft one day.

“None that mattered,” Mycroft texted back.

“You’re sure?”

“Certain.”

“That’s almost too bad,” Sherlock texted. Not that he wanted to have chased off someone Mycroft loved. Not now. But it was unnerving to think Mycroft had never had anyone who mattered more than Sherlock.

Mary and Elaine were listed as “missing, presumed dead.” With no bodies, no more could be said, legally or otherwise. Sherlock remembered the sound of gunshots, and Mary falling limply on the grass of the back garden.

He wished there was a grave—even an empty one. Without a grave, what was he supposed to visit when he felt the ache of mourning?

He climbed over the tar paper and tiles and slates and lead shingles of London’s roofs, until he found a tiny temple of red brick chimneys topped with red pottery chimney pots. They were arranged in a rough rectangle on the flat top of the mansard roof of an old Georgian building in Pimlico. He could sit among the rising chimneys and smell the faint traces of old coal fires from centuries of use. He felt very stupid writing Mary’s and Elaine’s names up there, on the red brick. It gave him a place to mourn, though, that didn’t force John or anyone else to know he was mourning.

“I miss you,” he whispered to the white letters. “I wish you were still here.”

He’d close his eyes and imagine Elaine warm in his arms, and himself warm in Mary’s as she hugged him from behind—his unexpected sister, his surprise mirror, his other self.

“We miss you, too,” Mary said, “but that’s all right. We’ll all get through this somehow, you silly clot.”

She was very good, the Mary in his imagination. She often let him stay in the chimney-temple for as long as an hour before she chased him out and told him to get on with his life and take care of John for her.

It was harder to take care of John these days. John seemed to care less than ever about danger, while Sherlock cared more. The hunt for shadows of Moriarty led them into danger too often…and Sherlock was too aware that their luck wasn’t infinite, or their lives eternal.

“Be careful,” he said, sometimes. “Wait for me. Don’t go in without backup.”

Lestrade, when joining them on the hunt, didn’t laugh. He looked at Sherlock through narrowed eyes, considering him. Eventually he drew Sherlock aside on night, hauling him down to where his sedan waited in the car park below his office. “You can’t protect him,” he said. “Not more than you already are. He is what he is…a soldier in a war. Don’t take that away from him.”

Sherlock said, tightly, “He’s going to get himself killed one of these days.”

Lestrade considered, then said, “Maybe.” Then he put a hand on Sherlock’s back. “You’ll still have us.”

“Who?”

“Me. Molly. Mrs. Hudson. Your brother. Janine. It’s not the same. But it’s more than you used to have. If the day comes—let it be enough, Sherlock. Eh?”

Sherlock attempted a vicious comment, and failed to manage one. “What’s happened to me,” he asked, as he’d asked Molly. “I never used to be this way.”

Lestrade gave a crooked grin. “Ah, Pinocchio. Being real sucks.” He reached out and pulled Sherlock into a warm bear hug, rocking him slightly. Sherlock pulled back—then relaxed, and slipped his own arms around the older man. Not sure what he was doing, or what he wanted, he pressed closer, pressing his face against the shorter man’s head.

Lestrade let him cling, for a few minutes, then cautiously pulled back. He gripped Sherlock’s arms, and looked into his face, studying him, looking for something. After a few moments, he said, “You don’t want to go there, sunshine. You don’t want to follow this one to the end.” One hand drifted up, and tenderly swept Sherlock’s bangs aside. “Try me again sometime when it wouldn’t be a pity fuck for either of us, eh?”

“What?” Sherlock asked, blinking and stunned. “I—what?”

Lestrade just waited while Sherlock thought it all through. When the younger man blushed hot pink, and started to stammer an apology and denial, he shook his head. “We all get lonely. We all need…” he hesitated, obviously searching for what he wanted to say he—they—needed. He sighed, then. “We all _need_. But sometimes we make mistakes when we’re hurting, you know? This would be a mistake.”

Sherlock was surprised to realize that Lestrade was right—on all counts. He would have wanted this. He would have taken it. It would have been wrong for both of them.

“Who do you really need?” he asked.

Lestrade grimaced, a sad smile that twisted on itself. “You always were good with the right questions, sunshine.” Be he didn’t answer, and Sherlock couldn’t deduce it on his own.

“I was almost stupid enough to seduce Lestrade tonight,” he told John when he went back to Baker Street. “I—I don’t know how it happened.” He poured himself a shot of whiskey and dropped into his chair by the fireplace. “I don’t know what I was doing.”

John frowned, puzzled. “You what?”

“I… we were talking. I was sad.” His voice shook. “He gave me a hug. You know—Lestrade.”

John thought about it. “Kind,” he conceded. “Good hugs. I remember…” he went quiet, then said, warily, “I remember after you jumped. Once. Twice. Not often—I was avoiding everyone. But he’s a good hugger.”

“Yes.” Sherlock gulped down the whiskey, feeling it scorch its way down his throat. “He hugged me. Then I hugged him. Then…then he stopped it. And I was going to tell him he was stupid and wrong. But…” He closed his eyes. “I think I’d have done it, if he’d been willing.”

John frowned again. “I didn’t think you were…”

“I don’t think I am, either,” Sherlock said. Then said, “I don’t know what I am. I just know it felt better than not being hugged.”

John closed his eyes, then, and said, “Ah. Yes. I know that one.”

Neither said anything, after that—they just sat together, as the fire burned in the dim, shadowed room.

The next morning Sherlock was up early. He made scrambled eggs for John, and toast for both of them, and a big pot of tea. When John came down, scruffy and beloved and familiar, he put out the food and poured the tea, and settled opposite John, looking at him through the clutter of scientific glassware, metal clamps, and gas burners. When John began to look human and aware, Sherlock asked, “Who does Lestrade really want?”

John chomped on his toast, and studied Sherlock, puzzled. “Huh?”

“He doesn’t want me. Who does he want?”

John looked amused. “Don’t ask me. You’re the detective.”

“If I don’t know by now, I’m not likely to deduce it,” Sherlock pointed out. “He’s…good at keeping secrets.”

John’s eyes went dark and broody. “That he is.”

“He wants someone,” Sherlock said.

“You’re sure he doesn’t just want…well…anyone?”

Sherlock gave him a sour look. “If he wanted just _anyone_ , I don’t think I’d have come home last night. And I’d be in a much stranger mood this morning.”

John snorted, almost passing his tea through his nose. “Score,” he said, amused, once he’d managed to settle. “I admit, I’m relieved you think you’d be rattled by that. After years spent with you married to your work, I’d be amazed if you started cheating on the missus with Lestrade.”

Sherlock considered. “It would have been…” He stopped, and tried again. “It wasn’t…” No, that didn’t work. At last he said, uneasily, “It wasn’t the right thing. But it wasn’t…a bad thing, either.”

John studied him, then said, quietly, “Yeah. Well. It’s all good, ennit?”

Sherlock shrugged, frowning. “I honestly don’t know, John. It doesn’t feel like a huge revelation about who I ‘really’ am. Or—“ He swallowed, and said, cautiously, “I’ve discovered I’m not who I thought I was. But not that way in particular. I just…” He folded his hands together, and stared at them: pilgrim hands, pressed together in prayer. “I miss Mary, John.” His voice quavered. “I know you miss her more. You have to. I’m just worse at it than you are. I keep…leaking. It slips out. And I worry more than I used to.” He felt the fear well up, then. “I never used to be like this.”

John sucked in air. He stood abruptly, shaking the table, rattling the china, sloshing tea into the saucer. He knocked the chair aside and walked blindly into the sitting room, going to stand in front of the window where Sherlock usually played his violin.

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock said, raising his voice without leaving the table.

John didn’t answer.

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock muttered, this time scowling at his still folded hands.

They were both silent, then, for a time.

“Maybe Molly,” John said, eventually, his voice very even and amused.

“What?”

“Lestrade. Maybe he’s pining for Molly.”

Over the next weeks it turned into a minor hobby for the two of them: trying to decude who Lestrade pined for. In a peculiar way Sherlock felt it allowed them to mourn together without admitting it. The tangled conversation that had led them to the shared project, with its notes of mourning, misplaced desire, uncertainty, and emotional growth seemed to cling to the project. It was as if in searching for the missing answer, Sherlock and John were somehow also answering all the other questions they’d skirted that morning.

“It’s not Molly,” Sherlock said, over a gyro one afternoon. “Did you see them over that stab victim? Nothing.”

“I don’t know. They bantered nicely,” John said, dipping his own gyro in a puddle of tzatziki sauce. “Banter’s not a bad start.”

Sherlock snorted. “I bantered with Mary, but that didn’t mean I was in love with her. She was good at banter.”

“Molly’s not particularly good at banter.”

“Lestrade’s got a knack, though,” Sherlock said. “Not as clever as Mycroft, for example—well, who is? But he’s got some charm.”

John grinned. “Sure you don’t want to go back and try him again?”

“Certain,” Sherlock said. In truth he wasn’t quite that certain…but he was uncertain in much the same way he was uncertain about Molly, and Janine, and even Irene. “In any case, he wasn’t interested in me. Or not more than for the moment.”

“I always thought he was straight,” John said, pondering. “He seems straight.”

Sherlock shrugged. “You make it sound like he can’t be both.”

John shrugged. “I guess I tend to think of it that way. You are or you aren’t.” He gave a crooked grin, and grabbed a few chips. “I’m not,” he said, then chomped decisively down on the crisp potatoes.

“I don’t think it works that way for everyone,” Sherlock said. “Do your research, John. Kinsey scales. Bi-curious. Heteroflexible.”

John rolled his eyes. “You do the research, mate. Me, I’m for birds, and that’s all I need to know.”

“So lacking in imagination,” Sherlock chided him. “Still, it’s nice you know what you like.”

John sighed.

Sherlock looked away.

“I miss her,” John said.

“I know. Me, too,” Sherlock replied.

Sherlock took John up to the chimney temple one year after Mary was taken from them. He had to take a modified route—John couldn’t manage a few of the longer leaps Sherlock often took on the way. Once they were there he stopped outside the square of chimneys. He looked at Sherlock. “You said this was were you think about Mary and Elaine?”

Sherlock nodded.

“You want me to see?”

Sherlock nodded again, but waited for John to go in on his own.

John hesitated. “I’m tired of visiting empty graves and memorials,” he said, angrily.

Sherlock sighed. “You don’t have to look. I can take you back.”

John set his shoulders. “No.” He looked sideways at his friend. “Wait here.” He walked in, slipping between the chimneys with almost military precision. He turned until he found the two chimneys with Mary and Elaine’s names.

Sherlock, standing outside, saw his eyes close. His head dropped. His hands fisted, silently.

He didn’t cry.

“I’ll be back in about an hour,” Sherlock said, just loud enough to be heard. He didn’t look back.

The took a trip together out to Sussex to see Janine’s cottage. She and Sherlock had become strange, merry friends over time.

“Banter,” Sherlock pointed out to John, grinning. “See? We banter.”

“Doesn’t mean anything,” John responded, laughing. “You proved that already.”

“What are you on about, you two bad boys?” Janine asked, chuckling. “You’re up to something.”

“Gossip, I’m afraid,” John said. “We’ve got a friend who’s sweet on someone, and we don’t know who she—or he—is. We’ve been trying to figure it out. We’ve got one friend who banters well with him, but neither of us think she’s the one.”

Janine gave a sly smile, like a laughing vixen. “Ask your brother, Mike,” she said to Sherlock. “Doesn’t he know everything?”

“Maybe about political affairs, or international crime,” John said, but Sherlock sat up straight and looked at Janine, then got up and waltzed her around her own back garden, laughing as he did.

“Brilliant girl,” he said, and spun her easily around. “Brilliant, brilliant girl! I’ll ask Mycroft!”

John looked deeply unconvinced. “Are you sure?”

Sherlock nodded, and tumbled himself and Janine down on a garden bench together. He wrapped a long arm around her waist. “I’m sure. Lestrade’s one of his—and he’ll be keeping track. If nothing else, the secret service cares which of their operatives are pining for whom.”

“Lestrade’s not…” John said, then stopped himself. “All right. Maybe he is. But…”

“I’ll ask. If nothing else, it will be fun to watch Mike squirm.”

That night he and Janine walked alone together down a country road. They stopped on a bridge over a stream, leaning on the old stone wall.

“He’s doing better,” Janine said. “Himself, that is. Been worried about him since Mary…went. Was… Been worried about him, y’know. He’s doing better.”

Sherlock nodded. “He is.”

She shot him a glance, and said, “You are, too. I was worried there. The two of you like murdered men, you were.”

He shrugged. “I miss her. Miss the baby.” He slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her close.

She hummed her curiosity. “Thought we were done, we two.”

He shrugged, but didn’t remove his arm. “Sometimes I miss you, too.”

She pondered that, then slipped her arm around his waist. “Not sure, are you, though?”

“No.”

“Tryin’ to figure it out?”

He grinned, and gave a small chuffing chuckle. “Experiments.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I can see that. Just be warned—experiments run both ways. And this guinea pig bites.”

“You’re not a guinea pig,” he said.

“Oh, right. Don’t sugar-talk me, boy-o. I know what you see when you look—‘test subject’ printed bold on my forehead.”

“True,” he admitted. “But—not a guinea pig. A rabbit, I think. A pretty rabbit that glows in the dark.” He laughed, softly. “But I promise, I won’t name you Bluebell.”

“Damn straight,” she growled, then ran a brief experiment under her own recognizance.

It was a pleasant success.

The next time Sherlock saw Mycroft he was feeling quite chipper—as though spring was finally coming after months of winter. He made a point of making sure his brother knew.

“Been enjoying the occasional jaunt to Sussex, Sherlock,” Mycroft grumbled. “I thought she’d already made her fortune off of your little debacle.”

“All the more reason to see her now,” Sherlock said. “She remembers me kindly every time a bee flies by.”

“I thought she got rid of the hives.”

“Every last one. But I’m trying to talk her into getting more.”

“You won’t succeed.”

“Probably not.” Sherlock stretched, and leaned back in his chair, smug and satisfied. “Still, I’m becoming quite fond of Sussex."

“Our parents living there having nothing to do with that—not that you visit when you go out.”

“I took Janine over to see them just last week,” Sherlock said, smirking.

Mycroft blinked. “Indeed?”

“She and Mummy made scones and looked at baby pictures.”

“It’s serious, then?”

“At the moment? I don’t think so,” Sherlock said. “Right now I think we’re just both having fun.”

“Fun,” Mycroft said, sourly. “You realize Mummy will be counting on a May wedding in no time?”

“Not likely,” Sherlock said. “Janine spent half the visit comparing me to all her other sweethearts—unfavorably. But she was very funny. Mummy was howling.”

“And you didn’t sulk?”

“I sulked.” He grinned. “They said I was adorable.”

Mycroft pouted, then. “What are you doing, Sherlock?” he asked. “I mean—really?”

Sherlock studied him. He looked more tired, and older. Sadder. His forelock had grown quite thin…

“I think, brother-dearest, I’m growing up. At least a little. You’ve asked me to often enough.”

Mycroft cocked his head, then—a rueful, oddly brave motion, as though he hurt a bit, but wasn’t going to cry out. “I suppose I have,” he said. “So—is she sister-in-law material?”

Sherlock shrugged. “She’s a friend. Beyond that? I don’t know.”

“A lover, it would appear.”

“One.”

“You’ve got more?”

Sherlock smiled, thinking of a few other forays he’d attempted since that night with Lestrade. “A few. On occasion.”

Mycroft sighed, and said, softly, “Not the Virgin any more, then?” His tone was both fond and sad.

“Just as well,” Sherlock said. “It was getting a bit ridiculous.”

“I shan’t argue.”

“Lestrade—he’s pining for someone,” Sherlock said. “Any idea who?”

Mycroft frowned, and studied Sherlock, suddenly wary. “Are you sure?”

Sherlock thought back to that evening—Lestrade’s arms around him, his around Lestrade, that moment when Lestrade had pushed him gently back. The look in the man’s eyes. The feeling in his own chest. “I’m sure,” he said, with a reminiscent smile.

Mycroft stopped, then, frozen for a split instant as he deduced. “I…see.”

“It didn’t go anywhere,” Sherlock said. “That’s how I know.”

“Not going anywhere doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not who he’s interested in,” Mycroft said, tartly.

“This time it does,” Sherlock said, feeling certain. If he’d learned nothing more from his experiments, he’d finally learned enough to be certain of that. “I’d have been a stand-in. Nothing more.”

“How very demoralizing.”

“It would have been turn-and-turnabout,” Sherlock said. “I was lonely that night.”

Mycroft studied him in silence, then nodded.

“So, any guesses? John and I have ruled out Molly and Donovan and Anderson and the barmaid at his favorite pub. Anyone in MI5 or 6 who’s likely? Is he sweet on Anthea?”

“Not to the best of my knowledge,” Mycroft said. “Though if she’s his interest I think he’s out of luck. I believe she’s one of Sappho’s chosen.”

“Which is a remarkably snotty way of saying she’d like him better if he were a she,” Sherlock snipped.

Mycroft shrugged. “Better to at least attempt wit, brother-mine.”

“Anything worth doing is worth doing well,” Sherlock replied, cheerfully. “That quip didn’t qualify. So. Not Anthea. No other ideas?”

Mycroft shook his head. “In all honesty, I’m not aware of anyone serious since his ex-wife.”

“He’s not still pining for _her?_ ” Sherlock wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Wasn’t the first time enough?”

“No idea,” Mycroft said, his voice cool and collected. “I’m not his keeper, though. I wouldn’t know.”

“You always know.”

Mycroft gave a flitting one-shouldered shrug, and looked away. “Not this time, little-brother. You’ll have to work it out for yourself.” He stood, and collected his coat and umbrella. “Just—be gentle? I value Lestrade, and I’d hate to see him too badly torn up as a result of your…experiments.”

Sherlock stretched and rose himself, shrugging into the Belstaff. “He’s not on my list.”

“You’re not even a little curious?”

Sherlock contemplated. “Curious? Maybe. A little. But if I ever try, I don’t think it will be with him. He and John…” He stopped, unsure what he was trying to say.

“He and John are too precious to you,” Mycroft said, as though it was instantly clear to him. He nodded, then, and said, comfortingly, “I do understand, little brother. Some things are too important to gamble with.”

Sherlock frowned, then, staring at his brother.

It was only on the way home, though, pacing through London and enjoying the day, that Sherlock stopped, and murmured, “How would you know?”

Sherlock and John laughed over it for days. Mycroft with a crush on Lestrade! It seemed so counterintuitive. Mycroft, so prim and priggish and fussy. Lestrade so much nothing of the sort. And the sad, silly hopelessness of it all: Mycroft soft for Lestrade while Lestrade was yearning for someone else. Neither man could quite hold back the chuckles.

For Sherlock it was a time of new life. The winter of mourning was, if not past, at least softened. John—his dear friend John—was back in Baker Street, and he was healing. They were a team again. Sherlock felt more secure in himself than he ever had before—more willing to risk himself, more willing to explore socially. He’d gone out with Molly and even kissed her. He’d begun to make friends with Anderson, of all people, and even found himself amused by Anderson’s sweet, silly wife. Janine came to Baker Street for dance lessons. He and John would clear away the furniture in the sitting room, pushing it all to the side of the room, and John would search Youtube, picking out good pieces. Sherlock and Janine would practice—fox trot, at first, then more complex steps. The first time they attempted a tango they fell giggling onto the sofa, Janine amazed she could dance at all, and Sherlock—

Well, Sherlock was amazed she could dance at all, too.

“You showed so little promise at first,” he said. “Quite deplorable.”

“That I was,” she chuckled. “But now I’m only questionable.”

“Oh, better than questionable,” he insisted. “After all, _I_ taught you!”

“Modesty, thy name is Sherlock Holmes.”

“Not hardly,” John said, laughing.

“Of course not,” Sherlock said, smug as a cat with cream. “There’s so little to be modest about.”

When Janine asked if Sherlock had checked with Mycroft about Lestrade, they could hardly contain themselves.

“Mike” she said, laughing. “Your Mike? Umbrella Mike?”

John nodded, grinning. “Umbrella Mike. I think I’ll call him that next time I see him. Poor sod.”

“Why don’t you try setting them up?” she asked, as though it was only common sense. “They’re both lonely.”

Sherlock gave her his most repressive look. “Don’t be silly.”

Janine was never intimidated by Sherlock’s looks. “Sillier to leave the poor beggars all sad and sorry, now, isn’t it?” she said. “Anyway, I’d love to see you try your hand at matchmaking, Sherl.”

He glowered. “Don’t be absurd.”

“Shall if I want,” she chuckled. “Come on. It’s easy. John, you text this Lestrade and tell him to drop by the pub. Sherl, you text Mikey the same. Bang—they both show up, and they’re both waiting for you to show…what’s more natural than they sit together, they talk…”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Mike? He doesn’t do ‘natural.’”

“I’m never going to get over hearing you call him ‘Mike,’” John muttered.

Sherlock blushed. “He hates it.”

“Poor old ginger tabby,” Janine said, pensively. “There’s a man needs his whiskers tickled, if every I saw one.”

John snorted. “Yeah, but Lestrade? That’s—just no. I’d believe Lestrade with an armful of sauce like you, girl. Someone all cheek and sass. Mycroft? He might as well be sweet on an undertaker.”

Sherlock, though, was silent.

He took Janine to the train station that night, and waited with her for her train to arrive.

“You have an idea, don’t you Shay-Shay?”

He snorted. “That’s really a very silly nickname for me.”

“That’s why you love it,” she said, smiling. “Now don’t change the subject. You think you know something about something. I can tell. You’re just busting with it.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Tell.”

One corner of his mouth flicked up. He leaned over, and whispered in her ear.

She grinned. “Wondered if you’d think of that yourself. Took a push from me to jog your brains, though, didn’t it?”

“Saucy woman.”

“Always. Let me know if you guessed right?”

He nodded.

“John’s doing better,” Janine said. “Lots better.”

Sherlock nodded again. “Better than I would have hoped,” he admitted.

“He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?”

“Surprisingly, yes.” He stretched his legs out, and said, pensively, “He reminds me of me when I was away. Like he’s just waiting to get back…like nothing’s quite real.” He gave her a worried look. “Sometimes it’s almost like he doesn’t believe they’re…gone. Is that all right?”

She shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I’m half crazy, me. But—I think we never quite believe the ones we love are really gone. Just stepped out of the room. Likely to come back any minute. Ah, here it is. Give me a hand with the carry-on, love?”

He walked her to her carriage, gave her a hug, and waved until the train was gone. Then he texted Lestrade.

**Buy you a pint at the Hound and  Hare? SH**

A second later the response came back.

**Sure. Why not?**

Three pints later, Sherlock leaned toward his friend and said, softly, “If I’d been Mycroft that night—it would have happened, wouldn’t it?”

Lestrade froze, pint not quite to his mouth. He shot Sherlock a frantic sideways glance like a horse trying to spot an enemy coming up from behind. He took a ragged breath, and proceeded to down far too much of the pint in one go.

Sherlock nodded to himself. “Thought so.”

Lestrade sighed heavily, and leaned his elbows on the counter of the pub bar. He stared bleakly at his glass, but said nothing.

Sherlock sat similarly, elbows on the polished wood.

Lestrade shifted uneasily.

Sherlock waited, playing guessing games with himself about how long it was going to take the barmaid to con a nice tip out of the flirtatious gentleman at the end of the bar. She was faster than he’d expected, and the tip was larger, too.

“Are you going to tell him?” Lestrade asked.

“No.”

“Thanks.”

“Tell him yourself.”

“He’s not…interested.”

“Mmmmm…wrong.”

Lestrade gave him a glance, frowning. “He’s…you’re sure?”

Sherlock shrugged. “Nope.” He  popped the terminal p. “Pretty sure. Not really sure.” He sipped his beer. “You’re going to have to make the first move, though. Especially if he’s interested.”

Lestrade gave him an evil look with a question built in.

“He’s avoided any real personal involvement for decades,” Sherlock said. “The more he likes you, the more likely he is to keep his mouth shut and shag nice clean strangers.”

Lestrade raised an eyebrow. “And you know this how?”

“Chased a few out of his flat long, long ago. Been—noticing ever since.”

“Ah.”

Sherlock sighed. “He’s scared, Graham.”

“Greg.”

“You’re far too easy to tease, Garvey.”

‘You’re a right bastard, you are, Holmes.”

“Just remember—you’ll have to make the first move, and you’ll have to keep at it. He’s kept himself safe even longer than I did. Just used a different approach.”

Lestrade picked at the cardboard matt under his glass. “Think it will work?”

“No idea. Think you’re going to try?”

“No idea. Don’t want to lose what we do have.”

Sherlock nodded. “Yeah. I understand.”

Lestrade nodded. “I suppose you do.”

Sherlock thought about it as the two sat there, sipping beer, with the pub spinning around them, alive with energy. “I miss Mary,” he said. “Not the way I did at first. But I miss her.”

Lestrade nodded, saying nothing.

“It would have been easier if there had been a body,” Sherlock said. “I saw her go down. I saw them kill her. But with no body—it’s hard to let go.”

Lestrade nodded again. “She was a special lady.”

“She was my friend.”

Lestrade’s mouth quirked. “Even though she shot you?”

Sherlock grinned. “I’d have done the same for her.”

“Yeah,” Lestrade laughed, “I bet you would, too.”

“To save her life?” Sherlock thought about it. “To save her life and Elaine’s? I’d have shot her without hesitation or remorse, to save them.” He blinked, suddenly stricken with sorrow as he had been when she’d been taken from them. “I’d have done anything.”

Lestrade studied him, then nodded, soberly. “I understand,” he said. “I remember what it was like when you jumped.”

“You knew it was rigged, though.”

“Didn’t make it as much easier as you’d think,” Lestrade responded. “Harder in some ways. No knowing if you’d even be back. Helping keep your friends in the dark. Watching it eat John to a shell. Seeing Anderson fall apart. It’s hard.” He finished his pint off, then stood. “I don’t think I could have done it, if it hadn’t been to protect you. For that—I’d have done anything.”

Sherlock nodded, and followed Lestrade out into the night.

It was a short walk home. He took his time.

His life had changed so completely in the time since the attack. He’d mourned, and healed. He’d grown. He’d got John back, and learned that he’d never lost him in the first place. He’d learned he missed Mary more than he even welcomed John’s return. He had discovered he was loved…and had grown into that discovery. He’d taken lovers, and turned lovers away.

He was not who he’d been two years before. Mary had changed him—in her entering of his life, and in her leaving of it.

He couldn’t help but wish her back—but he took comfort in the fact that she had altered him. Maybe he was a better memorial than a chimney chalked with a false name.

He unlocked the door to Baker Street, still thinking. He noticed a soft murmur of voices from the flat above, but didn’t really think about it. Only when he went in did he see them, silhouetted against the windows.

“John?” he said, softly, “who’s here?”

John cleared his voice and stepped away.

The woman was a black shadow against the light. Then she stepped forward, and he knew even before she stepped into the light.

Her face was changed, in a dozen subtle ways—surgery designed by a genius, to leave as much of her face intact as possible while changing her looks. She wore contacts that changed her eye color. Her cheekbones were higher than they’d been.

“Mary,” he said.

She gave him a nervous smile. “Lucy, now. Lucy Ferrier. From Utah.” Her accent was American, from the West.

“Mary,” he said, more firmly. He opened his arms and she flew into them. He bent over her. “That’s my girl,” he said, already smiling.

“We’re all right, then?” she asked.

“We’re all right,” he answered. “You’re safe, now?”

“Me and the baby, yes. We’re both safe. Your brother managed to track the people who were after me,” she said.

He nodded. He looked up at John. “You knew.”

“Yes. But—we didn’t know if she could come back. Ever. I just wanted to keep them alive.” John looked at his friend, eyes dark with stubbornness, and a bit of fear. “Are you angry?”

Sherlock snorted. “Even if I was—turnabout’s fair play. But I’m not.” He smiled then, and hugged them both tight. “She lived. That’s all that matters.”


End file.
